day 272

The skin on the back on my past lover smells spineless. We had spent years trying to build a home out of brittle bones and bony rib cage. At night, I sprawled myself across the void we called comfort. I didn't want to be alone, but we both didn't know how to love me. There would be a thick musk in the air every time you opened your chest and I mistook it for higher being. I prayed, just to live in this attic. To sleep underneath the slant of a crooked smile and pretend the ceiling would accidentally cave in. I wanted to die as close to the clouds as possible. We had become swollen from sleeping in each others' oceans. I remember when you asked me if I knew how to swim. I lied to you and told you that I did. I didn't want you to save me if I drowned in your own misery. There are times I miss the buoyancy in your screams so bad that I've learned to tread water like I know how to fly. You told me I sing like an angel and I told you to go to hell for not loving me like I dreamed. I've spent years trying to build a home out of your sweat. I know a couple that wears the stench of weariness like they're too exhausted to change. I pray, just to live in their attic. Have them mistake me for a god as I show up in their dreams. I know they only share a mattress just to fill the void they feed between their limbs. They sleep on each others' arms until they grow numb. They wake up and forget the way their bodies naturally cave into each other. They've settled for humidity when they only wanted heat.

day 271

A woman walks into a bar with all of her children

The bartender tells her that there are no pets allowed

She says, "You've got to be kitten me!"

day 270

Hello, tonight the Sports Center will be commentating the final round of our competitive Non-REM Sleep Cycle!

Please welcome our fellow world renowned professional sleepers, Jack and Sally!

As the referees check in with each other, our volunteers have made our competitors feel just at home. With pillows filled of melted clouds and mattresses of your mother's arms, we shall let the games commence!

Stage 1: Polysomnography, also known as "sleep reading"
Oh alright, Jack has gone into a state of weariness in just a matter of seconds. THIS HAS GOT TO BE THE WORLD'S RECORD. This just in... the officials have just informed us that Jack has just stolen the title of "quickest to knock out."

As Stage 2 creeps up, Sally has slowly fallen into a state of slumber at about 6 minutes and 04 seconds.

Stage 2: Jack and Sally's bodies will now prepare their bodies for deep sleep.

Although Jack has had the one up on Sally for a solid 6 minutes, Sally is winning back the show as her body enters complete relaxation. We suspect she is dreaming of having her cake and eating it, too. Jack is however, twitching and rustling in his sheets.

Sally skips Stage 3 as she quickly advances to Stage 4 as she is sleeping as solid as a pillow case filled with bricks.

Jack enters Stage 3. As you can see, his eyeballs are swimming in his skull.

As we anxiously wait to crown the biggest dreamer, here is a word from our sponsors!

day 269

birthday

you will wake up on a bed of your own pieces. stretch to break some more and yawn to suck it all up. this is how you wake up reborn. like the sandman found a way to bring the ocean to you and you've never felt more excited to dive right in. when i woke up crying, the sunlight sang to me good morning. told me she's been waiting to wake up to me all night. as i blow my wishes on my eyelashes, i throw away all i've seen yesterday.

day 268

So there I was, in the bunny suit again. She had asked me for my name and I asked her for her hand in marriage. This was a summer ago, when we were both in love. She said yes and broke my heart the next day. When you're with someone for that long, you don't just give up. You say no before hope begins to fly. She was the giant with a mechanical hand and she smacked me straight into the ground. I had never wanted to be so close to hell. To build her a throne out of the firewood and watch her skin radiate against the flames. She was the devil. She wore her sins so proudly and she always looked so god damn good. When she asked me for my name, I lied. She broke up with me because she thought she was too cool for me. I grew up as the loser with the triple-dog-dare-you girlfriend. I told her my name was Get The Fuck Away From Me. She giggled. I was always a joke to her.

day 267

Valentine to Edgar Allan Poe
In the voice of first cousin and beloved wife, Virginia Clemm Poe

After father died, mother swallowed the fists of his memory without any water. Our throats were machines of disease. We Poes were born gargling blood. It allowed us to speak doll-like and sing pretty.
When Eddy moved in with us, I learned the meaning of man. Of shouting at the top of your lungs and letting your neighborhood know which boy is yours. I was seven. He was seven at heart.
The day I learned that grandmother fell in love with holding her breath in her sleep, I held my skin even closer to my body. I shivered at the thought of flesh falling into the mouths of dirt eating worms. When cousin Neilson wanted to put a home around mother and I, I cried. I cried until my feet sunk into the mud and my eyes became spineless. There was something in the air that suffocated my conscience. When Eddy wrote to mother, I learned the meaning of man. Of shouting at the top of your lungs and letting your neighborhood know which girl is yours. I was born with a neck filled of butterfly legs and they constantly itched to fly.
When Eddy wrote to mother, I learned the meaning of man and wife. Of letting the hairs on the feet of the butterflies melt into your skin. They only taste with their feet, you know. I was thirteen. We were still seven at heart. He built bookshelves around mother and I and I learned how to sing. I sang until the butterflies drowned in the broken rivers in my throat. When Eddy saw that he taught me to build my own destruction, he cried. He cried because he tried to save me from the body we both shared. He must have forgotten that we Poes were all born gargling blood. He drank his sorrows like water and I drank his tears like ocean. We forget how to swim when the eyes of your lover become spineless. The side of our bed became the shoreline at high tide. He just wished for the waves to wash over him. I never wanted more in my life for our bodies to become eaten by grains of sand. We both sat and watched as our flesh became bits of hour glasses. I held my skin even closer to my body. I shivered at the thought of flesh falling into the mouths of dirt eating worms, so I sang. Like he taught me to sing. And I sang until I bled. Til the side of our bed became home to my ghost.

day 266

Your father told me you only really loved me because I am sweet. 

i.

We weren't alive to attend your parent's wedding,

but they told us we would've been the envy all of the punk rock angels left behind at their church reception. Your father baked the triple layered chocolate cake.

Your mother refused to eat any of it.

Said, she didn't want to grow sick of the sweetness so fast.

ii.

When you heard your parents in the next room planning out their divorce speech, you swore it sounded a lot like your suicide letter. You burned a mixed CD filled of Amy Winehouse and The Smiths and tried to play God. Proving that two completely different cries can still make other people wish they owned somebody else's shoulders. When you realized the other boys teased you for being a late bloomer, you hated yourself for letting them clip your wings before they even sprouted.

iii.

I learned that I wasn't ready for marriage when my 8th grade science teacher kept me off the honor roll. I kept trying to prove that my potential energy just grew in me and never became momentum. I refused to let my life turn into an amusement park of inertia. When your father helped you build a volcano out of baking soda, my father fed my fear of flying from quick changes.

I kissed a girl for the first time that year. I asked her to sing me to sleep. Her voice was the cry of an ancestry of dead addicts. Her tongue tasted like the stab of sea glass and syringe. She was quick sand. And I still hate myself for weighing 90% heavy heart.

iv.

We met at a college basement punk show. Our bodies hovered over each other, but we never touched. You call this the first time we made love. You told me I had glass eyes and I knew you wanted to save me. We watched the drummer break his drumsticks until he had nothing but soft palm. The guitarist stopped playing mid chord. The vocalist hung himself along the noose of his microphone.

The bassist kept playing.

You looked me straight in the eyes.

Told me,

this is why I want to die. You are only heard when the screaming finally disappears.

I didn't know what to say. I didn't want you to grow sick of my sweetness so fast.

I just smiled. And helped you unclip your wings.